VietGap standards, local producers’ cup of tea

Despite being a major tea producer, Vietnam has been urged to
restructure its tea industry to enhance its competitiveness and foster
sustainable development. Report by the Vietnam Economic News.

Vietnam's tea export ranks fifth in the world in terms of production
but only 10th in terms of sale prices. It is estimated that Vietnam's
tea exports in 2013 will see a significant decline, up to 20 percent due
to the poor quality of its tea products.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the tea
export in September reached 13,000 tonnes, worth nearly 21 million USD.
In the first nine months of the year, Vietnam exported 101,000 tonnes,
earning 161 million USD and representing a 4.2 percent decrease compared
with the same period last year. It is estimated that tea production and
exports in 2013 will reduce by 20 percent year-on-year.

Chairman of the Vietnam Tea Association Doan Anh Tuan said although
Vietnamese tea is still exported to a number of markets such as the US,
Belarus and Indonesia, exports to traditional market like the EU are
facing many difficulties such as technical and quality barriers.

There are many reasons for the Vietnamese tea export decline.
However, the basic factor is the quality. Therefore, despite Vietnam’s
fifth position among the global tea producers, its export revenue ranks
only 10th. While Vietnam exports tea at 1.45 USD per kg, many European
countries import the products and re-export them at a price of nearly 10
USD per kg.

Dr Nguyen Quoc Vong from the
Management Board of agricultural projects, Ministry of Agriculture and
Rural Development, said Vietnam’s tea export value per hectare is low,
only over 1,200 USD per hectare, much lower than Sri Lanka (5,700 USD
per ha) and Kenya (6,000 USD per ha).

According
to Nguyen Xuan Hoa, deputy head of the Agro-forestry Processing and
Salt Industry Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development, to achieve a sustainable tea industry, Vietnam needs to
promote coordination in tea production between farmers and farmers,
farmers and enterprises.

In addition, it needs
to pay attention to the planning of tea growing regions to increase
productivity, quality and safety of the tea materials; rearrange the tea
processing plants and ensure that they have a coordination with tea
material regions and apply the Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP).

In reality, the number of tea processing plants is growing rapidly,
resulting in lack of high quality materials as the plants are willing to
buy the materials at all levels of quality. This will discourage the
growers to produce high-quality tea and therefore result in lower
quality of Vietnamese tea products.

Apart from
launching trade promotion and trademark advertising programmes, tea
enterprises should also promote domestic consumption as this is a large
and potential market. On the other hand, the tea growing areas meeting
VietGap standards remain low, therefore, in order to improve the quality
of material sources, the State should adopt policies to encourage
growers and enterprises to produce tea following Good Agricultural
Practices (GAP) models.-VNA